Hot and fresh from the oven to Santa's plate

Today I'm celebrating Bake Cookies Day!

I love to bake. I learned to bake cookies and cakes from scratch at an early age. My grandpa would give us eggs straight from the farm. Each week my sister and I would bake him a pound cake. We'd usually get a dollar bill from him for baking the cake. We'd usually squabble over who got the bowl at the end. Mom would give one the spoon and the other the beaters. Then, she'd draw a line down the center of the bowl, give each of us a spoon, and we'd go for it! It seems like there was never enough of that treat though. When my brother came to live with me while he was in college, as I made that first cake, we had as much of the dough that we wanted and then made cupcakes with what was left! :) I'd often take homemade chocolate chip cookies in my lunch at school. In high school I'd often take a batch of homemade cookies to share with my friends.

One of the funnest things I enjoy doing with my niece and nephews is baking cookies. They usually enjoy helping in the kitchen. When they come to visit overnight, we usually schedule some time to bake homemade cookies, sometimes ala Ms Pillsbury though. I've always been a fan of cookie dough and am usually generous with the kids in enjoying a bit as the cookies are going into the oven. However, one of my nephews doesn't touch that any more -- after one night when too much dough took its toll that he remembers well.

One of the neatest stories I've heard is how Jeanette Cram started Treat the Troops where >785,000 cookies have been sent to the troops since 1990 by her and the Crumbs, her friends who help make the batter, pack the cookies, and prepare the shipping and customs labels. Over 80,000 cookies have been sent to the deployed soldiers for the 2007 holidays. The Girl Scouts also arrange for delivery of their cookies through the project Troop to Troop, which had a challenge of 120,000 packages for 2007 by working with organizations like the American Red Cross, the USO,and Operation Gratitude.

An annual tradition is baking some cookies to leave for Santa on Christmas eve. Expert Village now has a video on YouTube with Santa actually teaching a lesson on how to bake cookies. Also, MSN Lifestyle had a feature story this week on how to make dozens of distinctive cookies from a single dough recipe. I have a huge cookbook with hundreds of cookie recipes that I enjoy.

In continuing my e-tour of holiday lights, in honor of today's anniversary of the Nutcracker being performed, here's an animated light show to TSO's Nutcracker:


As posted on YouTube by darrenv1969

Today I wish for you all the sweetness that holidays cookies can bring! Don't forget to add your favorite cookie recipe ingredients to your holiday grocery list and plan to bake some cookies for Santa.


Image credit: Customers Rock